Friday, 21 September 2012

Imprimis -- My departed Shade I trustTo Heav’n -- My Body to the silent Dust;
My Name to publick Censure I submit,
To be dispos’d of as the World thinks fit;
My Vice and Folly let Oblivion close,
The World already is o’erstock’d with those;
My Wit I give, as Misers give their Store,
To those who think they had enough before.
Bestow my Patience to compose the Lives
Of slighted Virgins and neglected Wives;
To modish Lovers I resign my Truth,
My cool Reflexion to unthinking Youth;
And some Good-nature give (‘tis my Desire)
To surly Husbands, as their Needs require;
And first discharge my Funeral -- and then
To the Small poets I bequeath my Pen.
Let a small Sprig
(true Emblem of my Rhyme)
Of blasted Laurel on my Hearse recline;
Let some grave Wight, that struggles for Renown,
By chanting Dirges through a Market-Town,
With gentle Step precede the solemn Train;
A broken Flute upon his Arm shall lean.
Six comick Poets may the Corse surround,
And All Free-holders; if they can be found:
Then follow next the melancholy Throng,
As shrewd instructors, who themselves are wrong.The Virtuoso, rich in Sun-dry’d Weeds,
The Politician, whom no Mortal heeds,
The silent Lawyer, chamber’d all the Day,
And the stern Soldier that receives no Pay.
But stay -- the Mourners shou’d be first our Care,
Let the freed Prentice lead the Miser’s Heir;Let the young relict wipe her mournful Eye,
And widow’d Husbands o’er their Garlick cry.
All this let my Executors fulfil,
And rest assur’d that this is Mira’s Will;
Who was, when she these Legacies design’d,
In Body healthy, and compos’d in Mind.

MaryLeapor (1722-1746): Mira's Will, from Poems Upon Several Occasions, 1748

Mrs. MaryLeapor was born at Marston St.
Lawrence, in Northamptonshire, in the year 1722; whence she removed with
her father, a gardener, to Brackley in the same county, where she
resided the remainder of her life. Mrs. Leapor from her childhood delighted in reading,
and particularly Poetry, but had few opportunities of procuring any
books of that kind: her whole library consisted of sixteen or seventeen
odd volumes, among which were part of the works of Mr. Pope, her
greatest favourite, Dryden's fables, some volumes of plays, & c. Her person was indeed plain, but the reader must not
form an idea of it from the poem call'd Mira's Picture, for though she
has there made very free with herself, yet her appearance was by no
means disagreeable. The poem was occasioned by her hearing that a
gentleman, who had seen some of her verses, desired to know what her
person was. The reader will be still more surprised at the
excellence of her writings, when he is informed that her death, which
was occasioned by the measles, happened so early as her 24th year.

-- George Coleman, in George Coleman and Bonnell Thornton: Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755)

MaryLeapor is one of the instances which
may be produced of the powers of natural genius, little assisted by
education. She was the daughter of a person who, at the time of her
birth, the 26th of February 1722, was gardener to Judge Blencowe, at
Marston St. Laurence, in Northamptonshire. She was brought up under the
care of a pious and sensible mother, who died a few years before her.
The little education which she received, consisted wholly in being
taught to read and write. She began at a very early age to compose
verses, at first with the approbation of her parents, who afterwards,
imagining an attention to poetry would be prejudicial to her,
endeavoured by every possible means to discountenance her in such
pursuits. These, however, were ineffectual, and she was at last left to
follow the bent of her genius and inclination. She died of the
measles, the 12th of November 1746, at Brackley; and after her death two
volumes of poems were printed in 8vo. in 1748 and 1751.-- Isaac Reed, in Biographia Dramatica; or, A Companion to the Playhouse (1782)

At some point in her adolescence, Mary Leapor became a kitchen maid. Her first employer, Susanna Jennens, had an interest in literature and encouraged Mary's's verse writing. After leaving Jennen's service, Leapor may have worked for several other households. Dismissed by her last employer in 1745, possibly because of her practice of writing poetry when she was supposed to be doing housework, Mary returned to Brackley to keep house for her father. Her plays and poems were circulated in manuscript around Brackley. She died soon after contracting the measles, two months before her first published poem, “The Rural Maid's Reflexions,” appeared in the London Magazine under the byline “a gardener's daughter.”

This is a wonderful, welcome surprise for me and comprise an amazingly full plate of thought and sensation. The Corots are so beautiful in themselves and act as a remarkable evocation of Mary Leapor. For what it's worth, these materials kind of give me hope that I can see my way through what must be a very confusing time for everyone. Curtis

Can't help feeling the Corots lend to Mary Leapor's art the dignity her low class status and demeaning occupation denied her. One supposes she simply could not NOT write -- there can be no other explanation for her perseverance. It is a pleasure to know her intelligent voice is now at last being heard, at least here, by a few discerning readers.

The top Corot is wonderful to behold -- the tranquil patch of lit floor-of-the-woods space in which he locates the musing figure, in her solitude, and the energetic turbulence of blown foliage way up at the ceiling of the piece, a finger-smudge-suggested whirl of leaves in a sunny blue celestial sky.

The top Corot is astonishing. "Could not Not write" seems to say it all. I think that's where I derive the sense of hope -- seeing a gifted and industrious person unwilling not to do what they were clearly meant to do. Curtis

Mary's literary obsession at times makes for ironic moments, as in the prelude to the longish country-house-as-seen-from-downstairs genre-subverting piece "Crumble-Hall":

When Friends or Fortune frown on Mira's Lay,Or gloomy Vapours hide the Lamp of Day;With low'ring Forehead, and with aching Limbs,Oppress'd with Head-ach, and eternal Whims,Sad Mira vows to quit the darling Crime:Yet takes her Farewel, and Repents, in Rhyme.

Oh my, poetry won't be the answer, either. Why did I put all my hopeinto the poetry basketwith the other eggs?The milk, the honeyfrom the marketmy tears at this junctureland in my handsruin the clean sheetof paperit is not the lastin the world but seems so."part of this world"the poet says of the field,the raspberry scratchesso beautiful, so fine.